Is a digital marketing agency a good way to make money alongside a local newsletter?

If you're just looking for any way to make money, the digital marketing agency is the play. To me it's an absolute no-brainer.

"Anyone running Meta ads for their newsletter is in the top one percent."

Why does a newsletter operator have an edge?

Because you're already doing the hard part. Running Meta ads well enough to grow a local newsletter puts you ahead of almost every option a small business can hire. Small businesses don't understand this stuff, and they know they don't.

Your newsletter also hands you the prospects. Think of it as a funnel that gets small business owners in the door so you can offer them really anything. An advertiser buys an ad, you ask what else they're doing for marketing, they say they don't really know. You offer to run Meta ads for them and charge monthly.

Every time I've asked that question, the answer has been some version of: nothing, or an agency they think they're overpaying and don't know what they're getting from. They'll take any advice you have. A lot of the agencies small businesses find are bloated, expensive and low quality, so it isn't hard to win them over.

And they trust you. If you tell your readers you're a digital marketer who wants to help local businesses, why would they go with someone who cold-emailed them?

What does that look like in real life?

• The gym owner. He was opening a gym the next week. I asked what he was doing for advertising. He said, "I don't know. Can you help me?" I pitched him $1,200 a month and he said yes. I didn't have time to do it, so I found someone who does it for him for $1,200 a month.
• My first advertiser. She came back and said she didn't have anything for marketing and asked if I could help. I built her a website and charged her a little extra for it.
• The weak website. When an advertiser shows me where we'd send people and the site is bad, nobody's going to buy from it. So: pay me and I'll build you a better one.

Is it easy?

No. It works if you're willing, actually want to do it, are capable of it, and understand the trade-offs. An agency is the money answer, not the durable-asset answer.

The economics are good, though. Adding another Meta ad client doesn't add 10 hours of work a week. It adds maybe one, even though you're charging as if it's 10.

The hardest part is patience on the client side. With a done-for-you newsletter service I ran for real estate clients, we told them it takes 6 to 12 months. One quit after a few months because it cost too much and he wasn't seeing anything, even though he hadn't done what he was supposed to do. The people who stay focused on it see money fast. The ones who don't get little out of it.

Should you run the agency yourself?

I've gone back and forth. My original vision was to build it: SEO, Meta and Google specialists behind every newsletter. Then an agency owner told me a software-backed newsletter business is worth 10 times more than a digital marketing agency, and that I should go all in on the newsletters instead.

Where I landed: find somebody to hand the work to and take 20%. I don't get distracted, and I still get paid.

If running an agency is too heavy, especially as a side hustle, there's a lighter version. Be a consultant for your sponsors: two hours a month, one hour of advice and one hour making content for them, so they don't have to hire someone for $4,000 a month.

How does it scale across newsletters?

One agency can sit behind 20 newsletters. Whoever is selling ads just asks, "By the way, who's doing your Meta ads?"

Give those salespeople 20% of whatever the client pays, and they'll proactively cross-sell for you. The agency has no sales cost other than that 20%, and you can just price it in. With 50 newsletters, that's 50 people in 50 towns talking to business owners every week.

How does it fit into a local media business?

As the top of a ladder:

1. Free: a business gets a free directory listing.
2. Low ticket: an upgraded listing at about $50 a month.
3. Middle: newsletter ads.
4. High ticket: agency work, around $1,000 a month.

Step one, get them in the funnel for free. Step two, upgrade them to paid. Step three, upgrade them to your agency. More in how to monetize a local directory.

Agencies already use a version of this. A common way they get clients is building vertical directories, like roofers or insurance agents, adding businesses for free, then selling them services once they're in the door.

The bigger idea: the best way to run a local newsletter is with a secondary business that benefits from the audience. Still sell ads. But when the lead goes to your own company, you make far more per lead, and that's where the real gold is. Tim Stoddart, who teaches people to build local SEO agencies, told me on my podcast to get a first agency client and not think about anything else until that happens.

Should you start the service business instead?

Usually not. I talked on my podcast about Christmas lights: I think that category will crush on leads, but I'm not going to hang the lights myself. An agency lets you sell leads into the category without running the trucks.

The lighter version is a partnership. Find an existing operator and take a referral fee per lead. It costs them nothing if you fail, so as long as you get in front of them, they'll probably say yes. That's a proposal I've made, not a deal I've signed. More in how to make money from leads you can't close.

What about an AI agency?

Same logic, bigger market. Every business is going to need help moving into the AI world. If you're the known person in town and your media company makes clear you do this, you're probably going to get a lot of clients. See what a back-end offer is.